Third Time's the Charm
by ifonly13
Summary: After the twisting path of their relationship, he was happy to fall into the cliche.
1. The Ring

_A/N: I dreamed this up while interning in Washington, DC this summer. I needed something way lighter than what I was dealing with at my organization and this was the outlet. This is the first chapter in a two-parter._

**_Disclaimer: I'm not Andrew Marlowe, therefore I do not own Castle._**

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><p>Lanie was wrapping up for the night. She had her feet up on her desk, her favorite Pandora station playing on the computer, and the last bit of a chocolate milkshake to finish off. With a flourish, she signed the last certificate of death for the day, then tapped the folders into a neat pile against the edge of her desk.<p>

"Doctor Parish, how lovely to see you!"

She gave a short scream, then turned to glare at Castle's approaching figure. "Haven't I told you not to scare me in the morgue?"

He paused. "No," he drew out. "You told me not to scare you during an autopsy because you had sharp objects. Nothing about the morgue as a whole."

"What do you want?" she asked, setting the files on the corner of the desk before gathering up her jacket and the milkshake. "Don't you have a woman to go home to?"

Castle blocked the door, holding out a hand. "Yes, but she's part of the reason I'm here." Lanie raised a brow, urging him to go on. "I need your help."

"With what, exactly?" She had to smile; he looked so uncomfortable that she knew what was coming was going to be good.

He took a deep breath. "I need to pick out a ring." It came out rushed.

The grin that blossomed on the medical examiner's face managed to light up her eyes as well. "What kind of ring are we talkin' about, Writer Boy?"

"The one right before the important one."

There was a squeal that Lanie was pretty sure came from her before she slapped a hand on the man's chest. "Castle, lead the way." She had her jacket on, the computer shut down, and her purse in the crook of her arm in a flurry of motion.

It was like a scene from a spy movie. The two of them moved through hallways, peeking around corners and whistling innocently when people walked past them. Somehow, they made it down to the sidewalk and hailed an empty cab, a miracle considering the snow that was falling. Lanie appreciated the address that Castle rambled off – it was one that she often window-shopped in but never entered, knowing that her salary would never allow her to buy anything once inside.

Lanie unwrapped her scarf as a saleswoman greeted them. "Good afternoon and welcome to Tiffany and Company!" The woman's eyes got a sparkle in them when she saw who had walked through the front door. "Mr. Rick Castle. Here to buy another engagement ring, I assume?"

"Elizabeth, it is a pleasure. And yes, actually." When the young woman's eyes drifted toward Lanie, Castle shook his head. "And this is my friend Lanie Parish. She's here to help me out a bit."

Lanie looked up from the case she was gazing into to give the blonde woman a wave.

"Oh, so we're doing this one the right way, are we?"

Castle leaned over Lanie's shoulder to whisper in her ear. "Elizabeth helped me pick out the rings for Meredith and Gina. Apparently, your presence means that I'm one of those 'third time's the charm' men."

Lanie raised a brow. "You better be. I ain't gonna let my girl have her heart broken if you don't think she's the one."

Castle crossed his heart toward Lanie as they followed Elizabeth over to the engagement rings and waited while she unlocked the glass case. "What style are we looking at for Number Three?"

"Kate." When Elizabeth tilted her head in confusion, Castle clarified. "Her name's Kate. And simple."

It took two minutes before they had the classic solitaire ring out of the case and resting on a display pillow. Now, they were busy debating carat size.

"Castle, I know my girl. She won't want a huge diamond on her finger while she cuffs perps. Stick with the one and a half. Any bigger and she'll never wear it."

"You sure it's not too small, though?" he asked, examining the diamond. Lanie was pleased to see that his fingers were shaking a little. _Good. Nervous means that he cares._

"Positive." Lanie smiled at Elizabeth, who had been watching the exchange with a knowing smile. "He'll take the one and a half carat one, Elizabeth." She turned back to Castle, who was worrying with his fingers. Lanie placed a hand over his, stilling them. "Trust me. She'll love it."

He exhaled, his shoulders relaxing. "Okay. Okay."

Lanie wandered off as Elizabeth went in back to fill out the order request. Every girl dreamed of getting one of those robin's egg blue boxes at some point during her life and Lanie was no different. Unfortunately, a medical examiner's salary was no better than a cop's and she didn't have the luxury of dropping nearly twenty thousand dollars on a ring or even a thousand for a pair of earrings. She looked down, running her fingers over the case above a pair shaped like an octagon, nine diamonds sparkling up at her from each one.

From the back room, Elizabeth watched as the petite woman looked down at the mosaic earrings. She remembered feeling that way before she had started working at Tiffany's – totally in awe of the sparkle and shine surrounding her.

"Rick, I just need your signatures on a few forms," she called out, waving the clipboard in his direction.

The snow had stopped outside, but Lanie still bundled herself back into her scarf, pulling her chin into the soft folds of the purple cloth.

"Thank you."

She looked over as Castle closed the door behind the five women who had giggled their way past the mystery writer and into the store. "For what?"

He walked over, taking one of her hands and placing a kiss on her knuckles. "For knowing Kate."

"Rick." The use of his first name from the woman had him looking into her eyes. "You know Kate. You get her like no one I've ever met. She gets to be herself with you. She has shared aspects of her life that she had been afraid to share with anyone but me and her father. You are there for her when she needs you." Lanie smiled. "As long as you continue to stay at her side, you'll be fine. I'm not saying that she'll make it easy, but you've toughed it out for the past four years. A lifetime can't be that much harder."

"I'm not sure if that was a compliment or a threat." His face softened for the first time since he had walked into the autopsy room. "But thank you. For keeping me sane."

Lanie gave him a little punch on the arm. "Anytime, Writer Boy. Anytime."

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><p><em>AN: Now, compared to my average All My Secrets chapters, this one is dreadfully short. But that's because I wrote this a month before starting AMS and because I didn't have a ton to give Lanie or Castle to do. Next chapter will be different - promise._

_Review using that little blue link right below this. Each of them makes me smile like a fool at my laptop or on my phone - wherever I happen to get the e-mail notification._


	2. Presents

_A/N: Here's the last chapter of Third Time's the Charm! Thank you all for the reviews, favorites, and alerts - seriously. Love you all for it. To Pluto and back (since the Moon is far too close for the amount of love I feel for you all)._

**_Disclaimer: I look a lot like a full-time college student. A female college student at that. So, I'm not Andrew Marlowe._**

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><p>The snow had been falling steadily since eight o'clock that morning. Kate was sitting on the staircase, watching the white balls float down past the window. The precinct was empty – most of the officers had called in due to the mess that the streets were becoming. The only people there were her team. Someone – she assumed Castle – had dragged in a tree and the group was busy decorating it with objects they found lying around the precinct. The holiday station on the radio was sending "Blue Christmas" into the air. Ryan was crooning along to the amusement of everyone.<p>

Christmas was a hard time for her since she turned twenty. That was the first morning that her mother hadn't awoken her up with the smells of breakfast cooking. The first morning that her mother hadn't wielded a camera like a gun, snapping photos every five seconds. The first morning there hadn't been laughter filling their Manhattan apartment around the Christmas tree decorated with mismatched ornaments that each had a story behind them. Instead, she and her father had slept late, made their own breakfasts, and silently exchanged gifts. There had been glances toward the empty spot on the couch where Johanna should have been sitting, nursing a cup of peppermint tea.

Since then, Kate had become used to spending the day alone. She would call her father when she woke up, wish him a "Merry Christmas" and assure him that she would be over the next night for dinner. Dressed in her pajamas, she would sit on the couch, watch Christmas movies all day, eating only holiday cookies and hot chocolate before going back to bed.

She pulled her hands into the dark blue sweater, playing with the fringe on her white scarf. This year was different. Everyone had drawn the overnight shift at the precinct, so she had company. It was unusual for her. Hence the reason she was hiding out on the stairwell and not hanging spare handcuffs on evergreen branches.

"Beckett?" Lanie was three steps up the staircase, holding an extra mug of hot cocoa with a dollop of marshmallow crème floating in on top. "You gonna come decorate with us?"

Kate took the mug, the warmth seeping through her fingertips. "Yeah. In a minute."

She watched the marshmallow dissolve slowly. The snow was still falling when she stood up, walking down the steps to join the group. The tree was amusing. Handcuffs hung next to snowflakes cut from old case folders, crime scene tape wrapped around it. At the top was her badge, clipped onto one of the branches. Someone had managed to scrounge up all of the presents and placed them under the tree. It was a tradition for their group to exchange gifts – limited to one per person. Every year, Kate tried to hide her gifts for the boys a little better, but someone kept tracking them down, reminding her that she worked with a group of detectives who knew their stuff.

"Are we going to wait until actual Christmas to open presents or are we doing it now?" she asked, taking a careful sip from the mug and licking away the film of marshmallow that coated her upper lip. She rolled her eyes when she caught Castle staring at her, his mouth gaping open a little. "Is Alexis expecting you to be at home tomorrow morning?"

Castle shrugged. "She'll sleep in. Plus, I told her I might be late."

"Now, then," Lanie decided with a clap.

Everyone found a seat, pulling them over to make a horseshoe around the tree. Lanie was dividing up the presents into piles. Kate curled her feet under her, then felt Castle's hand rest on her's. Without a word, she curled her fingers around his, smiling at her knees. She hoped that the little jolt of electricity she felt when he touched her never went away.

Castle went first as the newest member of the team, juggling the set of plush Angry Birds from Lanie as expertly as if he had grown up in the circus. When Esposito joked as such, Castle chucked the red one squarely at the man's face.

Ryan proudly toasted the group with the set of pilsner glasses from Castle with a call of "Slàinte!" while Esposito flaunted the booklet of passes to get out of paperwork from Kate.

It was the final box on her desk, wrapped in lavender paper with a white bow. Everyone was watching as she pulled the bow off, sticking it onto Castle's forehead playfully. His brow felt warmer than usual, but she wrote it off as too many layers in the already heated precinct. The peek of robin's egg blue through the lavender had her hesitating, her breath catching in her chest. But she continued, balling the lavender paper up and tossing it into the pile under the tree.

Kate sat, looking at the box in her hands without opening it. Her mind raced through possibilities of what could be contained in the innocent blue box that every girl dreamed of getting. Her thumb brushed across the silver scrollwork lettering declaring that it was, indeed, from Tiffany and Co. With a steadying breath, she tucked her hair behind her ear and opened the top of the box, revealing a cream ring box nestled within the robin's egg blue.

Castle watched as her eyes widened, as her breath hitched. Her fingers were shaking a little, so he could tell that she knew what was in the velvet-covered box. She turned the bottom half of the box over, tipping the ring box into her palm.

There was a collective gasp when Castle shifted off the chair that he had claimed as his own that first day in the precinct those five years ago.

"Bro, what're you-" Esposito stopped his question when Lanie slapped a hand over his mouth, her other hand covering her own mouth, hiding the huge smile.

Kate was speechless as Castle took the ring box with two fingers. Slowly, her eyes rose from her now-empty hand to his face. Her mouth hung open a little as she searched his eyes for a hint of humor that would signal some huge joke on her. But the blue eyes were all seriousness.

"Katherine Beckett," he started, wiping his palms on the thighs of his jeans, "five years ago, you walked into one of my book signings. You were a breath of fresh air, completely different from the type of woman I was used to. You certainly didn't cling or follow me around like the others. Honestly, you infuriated me because I couldn't pin you down." He looked up, saw that her brows were pulled together, not in anger, but in an obvious attempt to keep her emotions at bay.

"Over those years, I have seen you at your absolute best and your worst. I've broken your heart and you've broken mine. We've fought and made up. I've made mistakes in my life, but meeting you wasn't one of them. I will never, ever regret you, Beckett."

Kate reached up, wiping away a tear that somehow found its way onto her cheek. Her eyes flicked over to Lanie, who was obviously holding in squeals of joy by covering her mouth with her clenched hands.

"I want to be there for you every morning with coffee from our favorite café. I want to be there for you after a hard case, to make you dinner and let you fall apart if you need to. I want you to be there for me, to yell at me when I'm not writing or when I overstep on a case or forget to do the laundry. I want family dinners at Thanksgiving and more Christmases just like this one. I want to be there with you when we finally catch the man behind your mother's murder. But most importantly, I want you. You once said that you weren't the type of girl who tried out marriages. I did. But I like to think that I'm the 'third time's the charm' type.

With his thumb, he flipped open the box. Inside was the ring he and Lanie had picked out those weeks ago. Even in the dim lighting of the precinct, the diamond sent rainbows onto the ceiling and her face. Castle watched as her eyes looked from his face, down to the ring, then back up.

"Beckett, will you marry me?"

She smiled, ignoring the couple of tears that snuck past her defenses. He looked so nervous, his hand shaking just the tiniest bit as he held the ring out to her, kneeling on the dirty floor of the precinct, surrounded by their family.

Reaching out a hand, she placed it on his knee. Then, her green eyes met his blue squarely. "Yes, Castle." Her voice wasn't as steady as her gaze was, but it was full of confidence.

The expression that spread across both of their faces could only be described as pure joy. With the applause of the team as a soundtrack, Castle pulled the ring from its nest in the box and took Kate's fingertips, slipping it onto her finger. Then, in the same motion, he tugged her onto her feet as he stood up, pulling her against him.

Right before kissing her, he whispered against her lips, "I love you, Beckett."

"I love you too, Castle."

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><p><em>AN: This was supposed to be the end of this story, but as I edited, I realized I left out a detail that I wanted to slip into it. But with the flow of the story, the right moment never presented itself. So there will be a short epilogue following._

_Until then, review please! It takes a few moments and makes me smile._


	3. A Small Token

_A/N: Here's the epilogue for Third Time's the Charm. Enjoy!_

**_Disclaimer: I'm not Andrew Marlowe. Therefore, I don't own Castle._**

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><p>On December 26th, everything was back to normal in the precinct. Lanie parted with Esposito on the elevator at her floor, whistling as she walked down the hallway to the morgue. There wasn't a new body on her slab, so she happily dropped her purse next to her desk, plopping down on the wheelie chair and kicking her feet up onto the desk.<p>

As she flicked the computer on, a silver of robin's egg blue peeking out from under her computer monitor caught her eye, one that hadn't been there two days ago.

"What the…?" she muttered, pushing aside the folder that covered it.

The box was similar to the one her best friend had received two days ago. The same color, the same silver writing embossed across the top. Lanie lifted the top of the box off and found a note on a piece of silver paper.

_I cannot thank you enough for the last five years. These are a small token of our friendship._

_(And yes, I already talked to your boyfriend about them – don't worry.)_

"You didn't!"

Nestled in the cotton were the octagonal earrings she had admired in the store. Lanie ran a finger over one of them, the diamonds smooth and polished under her fingertip.

"Katherine Beckett, you better hold onto that man or I might take him away from you."

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><p><em>AN: And so we conclude Third Time's the Charm. I wanted to include the earrings that Lanie had admired since they were the pair that I fell in love with while looking for Beckett's engagement ring. I'm going to post a picture of them on my tumblr (link in my bio) if you want to see what the earrings look like._

_I know this was a short one, but if you feel like it, review. I'd appreciate it!_


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